Ex-judge wants compo for Sopranos ideas

Sopranos creator David Chase said he has always been interested in the life of the mob as he described his dealings with a former judge who claims he is owed compensation today.

Former New Jersey municipal court judge Robert Baer claims his ideas helped Chase create the Sopranos plot and he is seeking both credit and compensation in the five-year legal battle.

Mr Baer’s lawsuit has been dismissed twice by a federal judge, but the rulings were overturned and a new jury at the federal court in Trenton, New Jersey, began hearing the case last Wednesday.

Today, Chase told the court he had always been interested in the mob since watching The Untouchables television series as a child.

Earlier in the case, Mr Baer told the jury he declined Chase’s offer of payment several times but said Chase agreed to “take care of him” if the show became a hit.

Mr Baer, who is also a former assistant prosecutor in Union and Hudson counties, first sued Chase in 2002, claiming he suggested a TV show about organised crime in New Jersey and gave Chase a crash course on the North Jersey mob.

The legal dispute centres on Mr Baer’s role in developing the show in 1995, when he had several conversations with Chase and gave him a three-day tour of the Garden State, years before The Sopranos became a TV sensation.

Mr Baer claims Chase’s ideas came after Mr Baer arranged meetings with police detectives and other experts and escorted him around mob sites in the Newark-Elizabeth area of New Jersey.

Chase called the claims “grossly distorted, petulant and self-aggrandising”, and said Mr Baer provided a “modest service”, arranging to introduce him to individuals who were experienced in certain facets of organised crime.

In court documents, Chase has called Mr Baer “self-delusional” and said he was “keenly aware of a ’mob presence’ in New Jersey” because he grew up in the Garden State.